As far as widow cooties go, there are far worse strains. In this country, widows in general — and especially widows who displayed the faintest carnal longings — were still demonized well into the eighteenth century. And in many parts of the world, widows are still degraded and marginalized. Though the practice is officially outlawed, there are still parts of rural India where widows throw themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres, a practice called seti. In Vrindovan, India's infamous "city of widows," thousands of women endure lives of hopeless poverty after fleeing physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their husband's families. Widows in parts of Africa are subject to "cleansing," a cruel euphemism for forced sex with a husband's relative. African widows often have their property snatched by relatives, and the practice of forced remarriage persists. Widows who are particularly frisky, industrious, or in the wrong place at the right time are branded as witches, such as those set upon by villagers in India recently, blamed for casting a spell in the form of tuberculosis.
But widows are also equal-opportunity contenders on online-personals websites, and even have some dating sites of their own, like WidowsOrWidowers.com. On blogs, however, I found men expressing reservations about dating widows — they're depressed, they're sexually paralyzed, their bedrooms are shrines to their dead husbands. Widows' first timid forays between the sheets often include that age-old deal breaker: uncontrollable sobbing. I recall my first sexual encounter after I separated from my first husband. I cried the whole time. It did not go over well. Not long ago, a man gave me a back rub that could have easily escalated into something more. Then I heard myself say, "My husband rubbed my back every night," and that was the end of that.
A close friend who is gay lost her partner to cancer just weeks before my husband died. We compare notes about our eating and sleeping habits, our loneliness, anger and frustration, and our propensity for spending money we don't have on stuff we don't need. We've dubbed this practice "widow shopping." I'm into handbags and bedding. She's got a thing for swimsuits.
Widows' first timid forays between the sheets often include that age-old deal breaker: uncontrollable sobbing.
And she's a flirt, which confuses her. "I'm not ready," is her mantra, though she can't stop buying bikinis and making dates. It's every widow's mantra. And if we don't say it often enough ourselves we hear it from everyone else. It's right up there with "You have to take care of your-self."
"You're not ready to date."
This insight was imparted by the dental hygienist. She said these words with airtight confidence. We'd met for the first time a half hour earlier, and began girl bonding even before she plunged a ice pick into the recesses of my upper-right molar. Here, basically, is what we'd learned about each other: I'm in my early fifties and widowed almost a year; she is slightly older and never married. And yet my lack of readiness was, to this stranger, as indisputable as the gunk on my only surviving wisdom tooth. At times I am unfit for human consumption, but I need to know I'm still in the game. And since I'm not expecting to light up like a preheated oven, I suppose if I'm attracted to someone, I'm ready. I know a woman who was really cagey about her sex life after her long-time boyfriend died suddenly of a heart attack. At the time I was upset with her for shutting me out. I thought she was acting weird. Now I understand her much better.
This same friend was rumored to be seducing — or at least trying to seduce — other people's husbands. I wonder now if it was all fabrication, a latter-day witch-hunt. I've fallen out of touch with at least one close friend because his wife deems our relationship "inappropriate" and forbade him to see me. Somehow in my huggable yet stigmatized state I am still a threat. I could have said to this woman, "Not to worry, I'm still grieving." But that wouldn't have been completely honest. The main reason I will never sleep with her husband is because I'm simply not attracted to him.
